College Sports Blog

ESPN Regional Television acquires Heart of Dallas Bowl

ESPN Regional Television (ERT) plans to acquire the Heart of Dallas Bowl but will maintain the bowl’s name and charitable organization.

The game will still be the Heart of Dallas Bowl presented by PlainsCapital Bank and will continue to support local charities. The 2014 game will start at 11 a.m. on Jan. 1 at the Cotton Bowl.

After two seasons as the TicketCity Bowl, the name was changed to the Heart of Dallas Bowl. Last season’s game between Oklahoma State of the Big 12 and Purdue of the Big Ten drew 48,313 and raised about $100,000 for the Metro Dallas Homeless Alliance.

The Heart of Dallas Bowl becomes the second bowl game in the DFW area to be owned and operated by ERT. ERT has run the Bell Helicopter Armed Forces Bowl since 2003. Brant Ringler, executive director of Armed Forces Bowl, and his team will oversee both bowls.

In July, it was announced that the Bell Helicopter Armed Forces Bowl had joined forces with the Heart of Dallas Bowl, securing a commitment to have a Big Ten representative on a rotating basis over a seven-year period (2013-2019).

In late August, the Big 12 Conference announced that one of its member schools will be playing in either the Heart of Dallas Bowl presented by PlainsCapital Bank or the Bell Helicopter Armed Forces Bowl starting with the 2014 season. The Big 12 Conference will supply a selection in five of the six seasons (2014-2019), and will be a primary back-up selection in one of the years.

Over the next six years neither game will feature the same match up. Final match-ups and tie-ins will be announced later.

“Working with ERT and partner conferences, we will be able to continue this bowl game in Dallas for many years to come,’’ said Britton Banowsky, Heart of Dallas founder and C-USA commissioner. “It also ensures that our mission to give back to the community will be funded well into the future.’’

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